Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

contextualization

Mars, Contextualization, and Church Leadership

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Image: NASA

What time is it on Mars?

I was obsessed with space as a child. In fact, I still have my old books about space, and now my children are reading them! I can assure you that it was their decision, not mine. Going along the theme of loving space, I was naturally into Star Wars, but it was Star Trek that won the day for me. Now I’m definitely revealing my inner nerd, but I even had a manual that talked about all the intricate systems on the USS Enterprise.

I recently watched a TED Talk from Nagin Cox, a Spacecraft Operations Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In it, she explained what life on Mars was like—she even referred to herself as a Martian! Now before you ask Google, Siri, or Alexa when humans first landed on Mars, let me clarify. She’s a Martian because she works on the team that controls the four rovers that the U.S. has placed on Mars since the mid-90s.

When the rovers are “sleeping” at night—in order to recharge their batteries—Cox and her team are hard at work creating the rover’s program for the next day. So essentially, Cox works the night shift.

Now unlike individuals who work the graveyard shift from 11 pm – 7 am here on Earth, things are a bit different on Mars. This is because a day on Mars is 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth. In other words, it takes 24 hours and 40 minutes for Mars to rotate once.

Not only that, but a year on Mars is almost twice as long as a year on Earth.

While this might sound like a minute detail (pun intended), this has actually created quite a couple of issues for Cox and her Martian colleagues, such as:

  • When you say the words yesterday, today, and tomorrow, how do you know if someone is referring to yesterday, today, and tomorrow on Earth time or Martian time?
  • Do you work the 11 pm – 7 am shift according to Earth time or Martian time?

Now what does this all have to do with church planting and leadership in the church?

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The Perception of Contextualization – A Response to MissionShift

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I am part of a group of bloggers, who received a free copy of MissionShift: Global Mission Issues in the Third Millennium, edited by David Hesselgrave and Ed Stetzer, in order to participate in a discussion on Ed Stetzer’s website.

I am responding to Paul Hiebert’s Essay entitled, “The Gospel in Human Contexts: Changing Perceptions of Contextualization.” Here is the summary of his thesis provided in MissionShift.

Thesis: The purpose of this essay is to offer some discussion of the state of “Contextualization” as a critical aspect of missions, and of the changing perceptions of contextualization among missionaries and missions scholars. Any analysis of the current status of the Christian mission in the world must take social, historical, personal, and other contexts into account, and examine the relationships between the different contexts in which the people we serve live. In this sense this essay addresses the PRESENT of what has traditionally been termed “missions.”

I am not monocultural – never was and never have been. I’m multicultural by birth: I am Canadian and I am also Korean – I’m Korean-Canadian. I agree with Hiebert when he suggests that individuals like me “are aware of cultural differences and have learned to negotiate between two worlds in daily living.” However, I disagree with him when he suggests that individuals like me “often do not stop to consciously examine these contexts, how they shape their thinking, or the deep differences between them.” Perhaps I’m different in that I am always constantly wrestling with my Korean and Canadian cultural differences – perhaps this is because I believe that I am a ligament in the Body of Christ.

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The Architecture of Asian Christianity

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Two weeks ago, when my wife and I travelled down to my mom’s home town (Seosan, Choongchun-Namdo, South Korea) for my uncle’s funeral, we came across this interesting building. Upon closer examiniation, we discovered that it is a Catholic church, but I was just in awe of the Asian flavor that the cathedral had.

Living in Montreal, Quebec for a couple years, I definitely saw my fair shair of cathedrals. Montreal even boasts of the St. Joseph Oratory, which has the third largest dome in the world, and the Notre-Dame Basillica, which has an amazingly dramatic Gothic  Revival architectural style.

However, never did I once see a cathedral that was so architecturally Asian!

Now that is a prime example of architectural contextualization!!